Resources for Action on the Bailout

Hat-tip to D&S collective member and columnist John Miller for these links.

First, long-time D&S author and supporter Jim Campen is now the executive director of Americans for Fairness in Lending. This Boston-based activist group working to reform the lending industry is conducting a campaign to have the Senate include the The Credit Holder’s Bill of Rights recently passed by the House approved by the Senate as any part of a bailout bill. You can send a letter to Senator Dodd, Chair of the House Banking Committee in support of this important legislation and read about AFFL’s good work at their website.

Second, two perennial progressive Congress people, Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders, have proposed thoughtful alternatives to the Paulson-Bush bailout of the financial industry. You can co-sign Bernie Sander’s letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson here. You can read more about the Kucinich proposal on his website.

Also check out Congressperson Raul Grijalva’s Saving Family Homes Act of 2008 (HR 6116), which would would grant homeowners whose mortgages have been foreclosed the right to petition a judge to allow them to remain in the home as renters, and pay a fair market rent. Read more about this progressive proposal here.

Finally, even University of Chicago finance professors are taking on Paulson’s bailout plan in the name of saving capitalism from the capitalists. See Luigi Zingales’s provocative article, “Why Paulson is Wrong” here.